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Edinburgh Fringe comedy awards shortlist

This year’s comedy awards mixed clowning and confessionals

Stephen Armstrong

Defiantly and hilariously unbranded: Sophie WillanSteve Ullathorne

The Sunday Times, August 27 2017, 12:01am

In a divided country, there was always going to be a divided Edinburgh Comedy Awards shortlist, split between shows of passion, confession and pain, and daft, energetic bouts of clowning. The result is pretty much a hung parliament: Ahir Shah, Hannah Gadsby, John Robins and Sophie Willan with something to say; Elf Lyons, Jordan Brookes, Mat Ewins and Spencer Jones keen to prance — with Mae Martin somewhere in the middle.

Sophie Willan (Pleasance Courtyard, 8pm ★★★★) manages to top 2016’s disconcerting account of a childhood spent in and out of care as her heroin-addict mother struggled to cope. She explains how the success of that show propelled her into meetings with TV commissioners entranced by her exotic northern working-class womanly ways. Two thirds of the…